Weight training is a popular physical fitness activity for aiding in the maintenance of one's overall physical health. A variety of weight-training exercises may be accomplished by employing any number of machines or apparatuses. Typically, these machines and apparatuses are large and bulky and may require a number of heavy weight plates as well as large frames, cables, and pulleys for their proper use. These machines and apparatuses are so large, in fact, that many of them are found only in health and fitness clubs. However, variations of these larger machines and apparatuses have been redesigned and adapted for home use.
One such apparatus is the dumbbell. In the past, there were generally two ways to exercise using dumbbells. The first involves coupling individual weight plates to a stand alone bar. Typically, a pair of weight plates are positioned on a bar at opposing ends, leaving a distance between the plates for a user to grasp the bar with their hand. Collars, or the like, are then positioned on the bar at the base of the weight plates and tightened to the bar to secure the plates to the bar. While weight plates can be adequately secured to the bar in this manner, users find the securement means to be rather cumbersome and time consuming, especially when having to change weight plates multiple times, to a point where some users omit the collars during an exercise, preferring to risk losing a weight plate from the bar and damaging property or, much worse, causing injury.
A second way of using dumbbells to exercise is to select from a number of differently weighted dumbbells for a particular exercise. Typically, a large area, such as that of a health club gym, is required to store a variety of dumbbell pairs at different weights. While this is quicker than changing weight plates, storing a number of differently weighted dumbbells for personal use is inefficient and impractical.
A new dumbbell system was developed to alleviate some of the above concerns and limitations of the present dumbbells. U.S. Pat. No. 5,839,997 (“the '997 patent”) entitled “Weight-Lifting Apparatus and Method” discloses an entire dumbbell system comprising a bar, a number of separately selectable weight plates, a tray, and a means of selecting the desired amount of weight for exercising. In this particular invention, a dial is included on the bar that allows the user to select the desired weight. As the user removes the dumbbell from the tray, only the selected amount of weight is coupled to the bar, the remaining weight plates being left behind in the tray. For example, each of the individual weight plates weighs two and one-half pounds. A pair of weights, at opposing ends of the bar, has a combined weight of five pounds. The '997 patent illustrates 10 weight plates, five plates on each side of the grip, on a single bar. In a specific commercial embodiment of the '997 patent, a person could select any number of weight plates from zero (the bar itself, without weight plates attached, weighs five pounds) to 10 (30 pounds) in five pound increments. This invention avoided the problem of using collars to secure individual weight plates to bars as well as the problem of storing a number of differently weighted dumbbells. The weight plates are conveniently stored in a tray that is adapted to correctly position the weight bar in the tray in relation to the weights so that the user could select the desired total weight by adjusting the dial.
While a commercial embodiment of the '997 patent addresses the concerns associated with the prior ways of exercising with dumbbells, the maximum weight of the dumbbell pairs of that commercial embodiment is limited to only 30 pounds for each dumbbell. This maximum weight limit of 30 pounds may be enough weight for a specific portion of the population, but another portion of the population, the larger weight trainers, requires more than the 30-pound dumbbells offered by that system.
Another prior art dumbbell that addresses the need to have a greater range of weight plates to select does so by substantially increasing its length to accommodate more weight plates. This dumbbell is too large and cumbersome even for the most experienced weight trainers. When performing certain exercises that require two dumbbells to be used at the same time, side-by-side and lengthwise, weight trainers find the prior art dumbbells to be uncomfortable and cumbersome because they are too long and bulky. Thus, weight trainers are unable to maximize their training efforts.
Therefore, a need exists for a weight-training apparatus that can increase the amount of weight available for training while at the same time providing an apparatus that can be comfortably used while allowing the weight trainer to maximize his physical efforts.